Bangkok

Bangkok is the capital of Thailand. It is also its largest city. Among high reaching skyscrapers, there is plenty to discover in this bustling culture capital of Thailand. Bangkok has a mix of culture, traditional and modern places of tourist attraction. It is extremely famous for the shopping malls and markets present here. The traffic of Bangkok is like any other metropolitan city- very busy. There are many things to do and explore in Bangkok, some of the major ones are:

Grand Palace

The Grand Palace is the palace of the kings of Thailand. Although the current King does not reside here, many official events take place here. It is the main tourist attraction of Bangkok. The palace is complex of several structures that include a museum, temple of the Emerald Buddha, gardens and halls.

Temple of the Reclining Buddha

Just behind the temple of the Emerald Buddha, this temple houses a 100 feet statue of reclining Buddha. The statue is long. It is not possible to view it all at once. So, you will need to cover it in sections. The feet of the statue is studded in precious gemstones. It is one of the popular places in Bangkok.

Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn)

This beautiful structure is made of porcelain. It sits by the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok. It is a Buddhist temple with Lord Shiva’s seven pronged trident at the top of the main building. There is also a carving Lord Indra seen riding his Airawat. The night view of the temple from the river ferry or cruise is mesmerizing.

The Marble Temple

This is a beautiful temple of typical Thai architecture made of Italian marbles. It may be visited purely to admire its beauty.

Pratunam

This is the largest wholesale market Thailand. Pratunam is the flea/street market in Ratchaprarop road near to Sukhumvit area in Thailand. There are hundreds of vendors selling clothes, bags, shoes, accessories, household utilities, relics, souvenirs and many other items. If you can shop, an entire day in this place is less. The shops on the outskirts are a little pricey but as you get deeper into the market you get everything at the cheapest price you can genuinely think.

This market is for local retailers, so if you buy more quantity of something you get additional discounts. You need to bargain a little and you may get things at the best prices here. Sometimes, the shopkeepers may be rude to you because even they get annoyed by tourists hounding them for prices and discounts. So, please bargain only if you are interested in buying an item. If you are a shopaholic, try to get a stay near this market. We do a lot of shopping from here.

Caution: Like any other flea market, guard your belongings and be aware of pick pockets that take advantage of the crowded areas.

Terminal 21

This is the largest shopping mall in Bangkok. This mall has total 7 floors. The unique thing about this mall is that it has named each floor after a city from around the world and the floor is themed on that city. These are Rome, Paris, London, Tokyo, Hollywood, Istanbul and San Francisco and the Caribbean. It houses variety of stores selling international brands, local products, gourmet, supermarkets etc. You may take a tour but I found items a little pricey here. All the local item were available in Pratunam market.

Chatuchak Weekend market

This market of Bangkok is the World’s largest weekend market. As per its website, about 2,00,000 people visit this market on weekends. It is spread in 35 acres and has about 26 sections selling food, fashion, antiques, home furnishing, flowers and much more. Everything under the sky is available here. The fashion apparels are the major attraction here.

Compared to Pratunam, this place was little costlier but the quality of the goods was also better. A group of sections are dedicated to selling a particular type of commodity. If you buy more than 2-3 products, you get more discounts. You may bargain here but try not to overdo it. This is such a huge market that we walked for about 28000 steps in the whole day from morning till night. Still, we were not able to cover every lane in the market. The food street is great. You will find everything from local cuisine to foreign cuisine here.